Saturday night’s POPS! concert by the Portland Symphony Orchestra at Merrill Auditorium was definitely for lovers, comparing and contrasting Puccini’s “La Boheme” with the Broadway hits on similar themes “Moulin Rouge” and “Rent.”
Doing the honors, under the baton of PSO music director Robert Moody, were tenor Mike Eldred and soprano Mia Gentile from Broadway, and tenor Christian Reinert and soprano Jessica Cage from the world of opera.
All three works were written as popular entertainment, and all three deal with love and death in its various manifestations, but the original “La Boheme” is incomparable, musically and in its libretto. Which leads one to wonder why the excerpts at this concert were sung in English and reiterated on the supertitle display.
I don’t know why the evening started with a performance of “Nature Boy” by Eldred, but it did. That was followed by a more appropriate and rousing rendition of Offenbach’s “Can Can” from “Orpheus in the Underworld,” setting the stage for two tender moments from the first act of “La Boheme,” as Mimi and Rodolpho get to know each other.
Reinert and Cates were a near-perfect match for these light-hearted flirtations.
In a very neat juxtaposition, Eldred and Gentile next sang “Light My Candle” from “Rent,” one of the most erotic seduction scenes ever to grace the stage at Merrill Auditorium, but with the roles reversed from the previous arias.
The great love duet, “O soave fanciulla,” was contrasted with “Elephant Love Medley,” from “Moulin Rouge,” in which Eldred as Christian uses every musical and literary device in the book in a (successful) attempt to seduce the courtesan Satine.
After intermission both couples sang “Seasons of Love” from “Rent,” in a well-balanced quartet, followed by “Musetta’s Waltz” from Act II of “La Boheme.”
“Will I Lose My Dignity,” from “Rent,” was contrasted with the final scenes of Mimi’s death. While the first number is certainly sad, one cannot even read the synopsis of Puccini’s finale in “Stories of the Great Operas” without choking up.
The antidote was “Come What May” from “Moulin Rouge,” a song of triumph before Satine, like Mimi, succumbs to tuberculosis. A standing ovation led to an encore of the final song from “Rent,” the message of which is carpe diem.
All in all, the first POPS! concert of the season was cleverly thought out, entertaining and well done, but from a musical standpoint it might have been better merely to stage excerpts from “La Boheme” alone.
Christopher Hyde’s Classical Beat column appears in the Maine Sunday Telegram. He can be reached at:
classbeat@netscape.net
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